Birthday Celebration, Part 1

A week and a half ago (the day before Spencer's birthday) we embarked on a little family getaway to celebrate Spencer turning 1. With everything that came last year with Spencer being born, we wanted to leave home so as not to be reminded of the negatives of his birth. We headed on a journey south that left me exhausted, but as a parent, happy for the experiences that my kids got! This will be a three-part series so stayed tuned in the next couple of days for the remainders of the journey!

Spencer's Birthday (May 20-21)

We made a very long drive Wednesday night to Atlanta, arriving at our hotel at 4am! Once we all got some sleep, we headed to the Atlanta Zoo to celebrate Spencer's actual birthday:) It started out rough with Avery peeing all over her car seat and through her pants on the way there...but once we dried the pants the day was lovely! It was a little hot but since it was a Thursday, there was barely anyone there!
The birthday boy enjoying the animals.
They had pandas!! Ever since I got to see pandas at the San Diego Zoo, I'm in love! They were so cute and Avery was excited to see them too:)
Avery's a joey!
Pumba!! We had to see the "pumbas" or warthogs:) These were the babies and they were really cute.
There was this really neat area in the zoo with a playground and it had this cool seesaw, Avery trying it out...
And Spencer even took a turn:) After the zoo we took Spencer for a mexican dinner-cheese quesadillas are one of his favs-and then he had an ice cream sundae.

Augusta, GA (May 21-22)
After spending two days in Atlanta (including a trip to Olympic Park where the kids played on a cute playground and then we got caught in an awful thunderstorm while walking the many blocks to our car!), we headed over to Augusta to visit Jake on base.
Uncle Jake and Spencer:)
Avery absolutely adores her Uncle Jake!
Jake and I outside his barracks. He showed us all around base and we got to spend a whole day with him, it was nice to see where he's been spending all of his time! Jake received his orders a few days after we left that he will be going to South Korea following his AIT graduation in August. We're going to miss him so much!

St. Augustine (May 23)
On our way to our final destination of Orlando, Fl., we stopped in St. Augustine for a few hours.
We had a little time to look around and we decided to check out the Fountain of Youth. It's a really great park and very beautiful
The actual spring that they found many, many years ago.
I'm hoping to drink away my gray hairs...am I looking any younger??!! I sprinkled some on the kids so we'll see how they age!!
The monument on the actual place where Ponce de Leon landed. There's a lot of history in this place and it's a really great atmosphere. I'm glad that we made the stop!

The next few days of our vacation to come, including how I became a rare statistic through an unwelcome encounter with a certain species of marine life...

It's Been a Year!

Spencer Cole, it's been a year since you were this small...

You had all of that beautiful dark hair!
It was love at first sight for your mommy, daddy, and big sister Avery:)
It's still unbelievably difficult to understand why you spent many of your first weeks of life like this...although those cozy days in the NICU did lead to your necessity to always be snuggled with something fleecy!
But since you've been home, you are doing wonderful and except for the few scars you have, there is no sign of how sick you started out. However, you did lose all of your lovely dark hair and looked like this for awhile!
Bathtime is your absolute favorite part of the day and just hearing the word bath sends you into a bouncing, squealing frenzy:)
Today, you have already started to shed your baby days and are loving the beginning of your toddler years. You love to eat, breakfast is your favorite time of day and you always want either waffles or pancakes. You have brought your family so much joy in this first year and your smile is magical. Happy 1st Birthday sweet Spencer!

We love you:)

The Weekend

ND/SMC

Saturday, we headed up to South Bend for an impromptu trip to start Mother's Day Weekend. I didn't take many pictures at all, it was a really gloomy day and we'll be heading back up there in June. So we decided to go to the bookstores and then go to UP Mall since I hadn't been there since I was at Saint Mary's. Since our Disney Store just closed here and we don't have a Sephora in Fort Wayne (these are two of my favorite stores), I was excited to be up in the Bend and get to go to these places. So after a lunch at Papa Vinos-of course-we hit the mall.

Of course what did Avery spot the very second we walked in...yep, the bungie jump (that we also no longer have at our mall). She hadn't gotten to do this in so long and was one extremely happy little girl!
The ND bookstore has these ND-shaped pretzels, so of course I had to have one since I love soft pretzels with cheese. By the way, the cafe here also has the most wonderful gelato (I had mango-fantastic!).
My princess on the ride home...
My little man took the opportunity to snooze also:)

Mother's Day

Artie and I took the kids to the zoo in the morning. It was chilly outside but a gorgeous day.
First thing we always go see is the monkeys...this particular monkey came right in front of us and Avery giggled in a laugh we had never heard before. Spencer was cracking up just listening to her, we all were it was precious:)
We got to feed a giraffe! It was so neat to get to feel her tongue and give her lettuce and see her up close-they are beautiful!
The zebras were very relaxed!
No visit would be complete without Avery getting to ride a pony:) This was Trish and poor thing went so slow we almost got lapped. We missed our regular, Sadie, who took another little one.
Spencer got his first ride on a carousel! I'm not sure what he thought, but he didn't cry, so it must have been okay:)
Artie ran out and got dinner and a cake to finish the day. This is what he and the kids picked for me! He claims he didn't realize it was a Dora cake, he just picked it because of the flavor (oreo ice cream on vanilla cake-yum)! Avery enjoyed the Dora figure:)
Even though Spencer's birthday isn't until next week, we gave him a taste of the cake...he liked the ice cream but not the cake. We'll see how he does next week!
Of course Avery gobbled it up!

First Manicure!

Technically this is from today, not the weekend, but I had been promising her I would do this since the weekend so...Spencer had an echo today and while Artie took him, I figured it was a good time to occupy myself with something fun and spend some time with Avery:)
The result, purple toenails and fingernails!
She did great letting me paint her nails for the first time! I think she was pretty happy:)

I'm Freezing, I Need Cheered Up!

Avery (pictured eating a hotdog in a bun for the first time!) told me this this morning, "I'm freezing, I need cheered up." And before I could say anything she followed that up with, "I could have some colored gold fish, that would cheer me up!!" Now, this was breakfast time so colored goldfish aren't usually on the menu, but they happened to still be sitting on the counter from last night's trip to Target-in plain eyesight of one smart little 2-year-old! I cannot believe how big my princess is getting. I mean, seriously, she's starting to already form conclusions like that to make mommy give her something she wants??! I can't believe my first born is more than half way to being a three year old! Which reminds me...
Mr. Spencer will be turning 1 exactly two weeks from today! I really can't believe this one. He is doing new things really everyday it seems. This week he officially became bottle-free:) I just washed up the bottles one last time this morning to pack away-that felt pretty good, washing bottles was the hugest pain. Spencer even started on whole milk once a day yesterday so we can begin to ween him off formula! His two top teeth are just about to pop through and will finally give him 4 teeth sometime very soon. Spencer has also pretty much cut out his morning nap so now he and Avery take one long afternoon nap at the same time! He's been doing great with table food and has eventually come around to start trying more things...here he is with some pasta-he didn't each much of it, but enjoyed making a mess!

Aside from the kids, we took our house off the market this week to let our real estate agent "go." It was a tough decision for us because we liked her as a person, but she wasn't doing anything-and I mean doing absolutely nothing-to get our house sold. So, we start the process all over again with another agent. We're meeting with a new one sometime this week and will hopefully have this thing back on the market very soon (though, at this point, Artie and I are just contemplating putting it on Craigslist and selling it ourselves). This house is becoming such a thorn in my side and it is so frustrating that we started this process nearly 6 months ago (though the decision to move has been years in the making) and have yet to get anywhere. Plus, those who know me know that I really dislike yard work, and since spring has come now we actually have to do stuff outside (mow, weed, etc.) to make the house look decent and it's a lot harder for me to do it for a house I don't even know how long I will be in. Spring brought projects we may not have had to do had the house sold over the winter (like we purposefully wanted!). But at least the outside of our house looks fresh with a new coat of paint on all of our trim work (courtesy of my dad) and our shutters finally got repaired in the front of the house (thanks again dad for your help on that too) and the hole in our roof also was fixed (my stepdad handled that one). So whoever is lucky enough to buy this house is getting one spruced up piece of property-aside from the landscaping:)!

Speaking of my dad, he had his skin grafting surgery on his eye this week. They took a huge piece of his eyelid from his right eye to repair and reconstruct his damaged lower eyelid on his left eye. He chose to be awake for the entire thing, though they did have to sedate him for about 5 mins to actually numb his eyes. He has a patch over the fixed eye and so we're anxiously awaiting to see if the graft worked-prayers that it takes this first time! He's doing okay, except for looking like he was in one heck of an alley fight!

The end of the week is approaching and it's Mother's Day weekend. We have some tentative plans that I hope work out! Happy (early) Mother's Day to all of you great mama's out there:)!

Birthday Pancakes and a Princess Potty Seat

The breakfast of champions in this house is "birthday" pancakes. I'm not exactly sure why Avery calls them that, they have never been served on a birthday of anyone in this house...but my guess is it's because they are fun confetti pancakes! The kids absolutely go nuts for these lifesavers-I'm a huge fan of frozen breakfast food that can quickly be popped in the toaster oven-requesting them nearly every morning:) Spencer eats about 2 and 1/2 of these babies each morning while Avery can put away 1 and 1/2! In fact, Spencer finally signed 'more' while wanting more of these pancakes. He did it just a few days ago after we had been working with him for awhile. It was so amazing-just like with Avery-to see him repeat something with meaning that we had been teaching him!

Spencer's order of birthday pancakes!

Very happy kids to be starting the day off right!

Pancake in...

Delicious! Look at those checks!!

I found these cute dixie cups with lids and animals on them for Avery. They are a fun addition!

I came across this fold up toddler seat for regular toilets. Avery won't go to the bathroom if she's just sitting on a big potty without something shaped more to her little tush. This folds all the way down to the size of one of the corners of this seat so it will be nice and discrete to take when we leave the house. Too bad we still aren't going #2 in the potty. I have about lost my mind with this process. She will ask to sit on the potty many times and do nothing and right after getting off the potty she'll go in her undies...it is so unbelievably frustrating!

Happy Monday!